Shoppers looking for Christmas bargains are being urged to steer clear of cut-price copies and cheap fakes.

Trading Standards officers have issued the warning as conmen try to cash in on the festive season by flogging dodgy DVDs, counterfeit clothes and potentially lethal vodka.

Officials say the sub-standard goods will only disappoint anyone unwrapping them on Christmas Day - and may have more serious consequences.

Newcastle City Council Trading Standards officer Dave Ellerington says Toon football tops, bogus Burberry shirts and shoes have been seized along with scores of Playstation games and DVDs.

"The fake goods market is a very lucrative one for those who are involved in it," he said. "It used to be that these kind of items were sold at car boot sales and on market stalls.

"Nowadays though, you're more likely to find them being offered in pubs or, in the case of DVDs, through colleagues at work who have lists of films they can copy.

"Although the quality of fakes can sometimes be quite difficult to spot with DVDs, many times the disc doesn't actually contain the full movie or in some cases is even completely blank.

"When someone buys counterfeit goods they have no comeback when something goes wrong because they can't take them back to a shop. Basically, they are being ripped off.

"Would anyone really want their loved ones to be disappointed when they open their presents on Christmas morning and find poor quality, dodgy fakes?"

The black market in counterfeit goods is a multi-million pound industry with 10s of thousands of pounds worth of items making their way to Tyneside every year.

Mr Ellerington added: "A lot of these things are flown in from the Far East and we've even seen cases where someone will get off the plane, pass a bag of items on to another person in the airport and then turn round and get straight back on the plane.

"Many people don't realise it can be traced back to gangsters and used to fund drugs operations. We've even seen terrorists in Northern Ireland using fakes to pay for their operations."

But it's not just clothes and DVDs which could turn Christmas sour - potentially lethal shipments of counterfeit Kirov vodka have been circulating, while other batches could make drinkers go blind.

Bottles containing this substance have plain red bottle caps whereas the genuine article has a double-headed eagle printed in gold and black on the top and the word Kirov printed on the side.

Doug Fox, a team manager in the Public Health department at Newcastle City Council, said: "Although we haven't seized any of the deadly type, we have found another lot with a white cap which is also fake and which can cause people to lose their sight.

"The people behind these scams tend to go from one brand to another. Recently it was Grant's vodka and now it's Kirov.

"Anyone who is offered cheap spirits should contact their local Trading Standards office."